Thursday, July 29, 2010

Tuesday evening, I spent time with a woman who had copyright concerns about the blogging that she and her colleagues are doing. While we didn't use the word "myths", clearly there are many myths and urban legends that surround copyright. Below are links to the resources I gave her. Obviously, these are a drop in the bucket, but good conversation starters for us over coffee and for her colleagues on Wednesday morning!

The June 2010 issue of Research Library Issues includes a four-page article by Brandon Butler entitled Urban Copyright Legends. The legends that he addresses are:

You cannot rely on fair use to protect a general policy because fair use determinations are made on a case-by-case basis.

Fair use is a defense, not an exemption, and accused infringers will bear a heavy burden of proving in court that their use was fair.

If a license is available, then your use ‘harms the market’ for that work and cannot be fair.

For digital transmissions, Section 110 trumps fair use. If a use does not qualify for 110 protection, it cannot be a fair use.

If a video is marketed for educational use, it cannot be transmitted digitally under 110(2).

Read the article to understand why Butler sees these are being legends.

I can see this article starting many useful conversations, especially around his first urban legend. General policies are good, but I expect that some (like me) would fear that such a policy would be abused. The only way to ensure that such a policy is not abused is through copyright education; something that we don't do enough of.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

According to the web site, the Journal Article Tag Suite Conference (JATS-Con) is the first of what the National Library of Medicine hopes "will be an annual series of conferences for users of the Journal Article Tag Suite, that is, users of any of the NLM DTDs. JATS-Con is a peer-reviewed conference with a broad range of content on the Tag Suite from the technical to publishing theory — and the latest news on the Tag Suite." The NLM journal DTD and its variations are used to publish, author, archive, or interchange journal articles or other documents. This event on November 1-2, 2010 is free, but registration is required.

Friday, July 23, 2010

In January 2010, JISC re-launched its Strategic Content Alliance newsletter as Digital Content Quarterly. Each issue is published as an interactive version (with videos) and as a static PDF document. As described by Sarah Fahmy in an email:

The content of DCQ is aimed primarily aimed at the digital content professional working in the public sector holistically, from cultural heritage, education and research, health or public service broadcasting.It aims to provide a news round-up of digital content issues from around the world, thought-provoking features highlighting key debates in the field and regular columns from experts in areas that have most traction in terms of digital content provision: intellectual property rights and business modelling and sustainability, in this fast-paced, ever-changing environment.

Yes, there is something here for everyone, so if you haven't checked it out, go and take a peek.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

My blog post on July 20 about the Copyright Clearance Center and Beyond the Book content on the Google Book Settlement was sparked by a book I received in the mail from Chris Kenneally at Beyond the Book of transcripts from several Lois Wasoff webinars. In a Twitter conversation, Kenneally noted that the book was something they were testing and that all of the transcripts were on the CCC web site. That sounded like a challenge to me! So I set off to find the transcripts that are in the book, which also lead me to addition content relevant to the Google Book Settlement.

So I was inspired by what the CCC had done, and the Kenneally was ten inspired by my blog post. Hence, the book is now available as a PDF on the Beyond the Book web site. {Chris, thank you!}

As a side note, the CCC and Beyond the Book create a ton of content on copyright that is available for free. Chris Kenneally does weekly podcasts at Beyond the Book about copyright, publishing, and new ways of thinking about the content we create. On the CCC web site, look under the education section for tools, news, guidelines, reports and more. You might want to check it out and see what would be useful to you.

We all know the digital preservation problem. This four-page document outlines the strategic agenda, dual-axis approach, and the four closely related basic principles that the Netherlands Coalition for Digital Preservation (NCDD) believes can help address it. The NCDD intends to develop a distributed national network for managing digital resources in the public sector. "The network will be based on cooperation and collaboration between stakeholders, because the resources required by long‐term digital preservation exceed the means of most individual institutions." The strategy itself is based on four principles:

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Recently, Andrew Stawowczyk Long from the National Library of Australia posted a message to the IMAGELIB discussion list about this free image to PDF batch converter that he had written. (He noted that is seems to work well, but has not been tested extensively.) That makes me wonder if there is other free or open source software that people are developing for digitization programs and where it is all housed. Is there a repository for this stuff somewhere? If you were trying to find free or open source software for your program where would you look?

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Intellectual property attorney Lois Wasoff has done several interviews and webinars for Beyond the Book and the Copyright Clearance Center on the Google Book Settlement. I learned today that the transcripts from those interviews are available on the Beyond the Book & CCC web sites. These are extensive snapshots in time about what was going with the Settlement. For anyone who is curious about the Settlement's history (or is studying it), these will be quite useful.

In the last two weeks, I've had two inquiries about audio digitization. I see that there was a question on the Archives and Archivists (A&A) List yesterday about this. (It is the current universal hot topic?) It was noted that there is a directory of "Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) members who offer services for audio preservation and restoration, as well as ARSC members and non-members who offer equipment and supplies for audio preservation and restoration." While the list may not be comprehensive, this would be a great place to start for anyone interested in audio digitization. Inquiring with local symphonies and sound engineers might also surface additional resources.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The folks at WePreserve and Planets have released their fourth Team Digital Preservation film (below). WePreserve and Planets are allowing you to of this and their other animations as part of your own work to raise awareness and understanding about digital preservation. Current are available on their YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/wepreservePlanets Additional animations will be released there in the future.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Normally I receive conference announcements from relevant email lists, but this one was sent to me directly. If you have a relevant conference announcement, you too can send them directly to me at hurst {at} hurstassociates {dot} com
MDI is pleased to announce the call for papers & registration of the forthcoming International Conference on Digital Libraries and Knowledge Organization (ICDK 2011) to be jointly organized by Management Development Institute (MDI) and Indian Association for Special Libraries and Information
Centres (IASLIC) during 14-16 February 2011.

The specific objectives of the conference are:

To provide a forum for scholars from different fields and backgrounds to share their views and perspectives on how to advance research in the area of digital libraries and knowledge organization tools and techniques.

Identifying best practices in all the spheres of digital library development and knowledge organization.

To provide strategic directions for the development of digital libraries

To prepare a sustainable knowledge organization framework for digital library development

Friday, July 09, 2010

This press release was sent to me from a Copyright Clearance Center marketing person. Feel free to to skip everything and go to the bold text toward the bottom. Here we see that employees need more education and guidance when it comes to copyright. I believe that part of that guidance could be clearer copyright information on documents, web sites, etc. Yes, even our digitization programs. People should not have to guess or assume. And there should be links to additional information, when necessary or even the ability to contact a real person for help.

Danvers, MA., – Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), a not-for-profit organization that is the world’s leading provider of copyright licensing solutions, has announced the results of a just-released, two-phase FreePint® survey of information managers and end-users from companies and countries around the world on copyright needs, behaviors, and attitudes in the enterprise.

Forty percent of information managers in Phase 1 of the survey reported that copyright risk management is more important than a year ago in their organizations while none of the respondents felt that copyright is less important than a year ago. Responses as to why included:

·Increase of contracting work out to third-parties, necessitating the creation of copyright policies both for the company’s own works and for use of others

·Growing cost of content itself, requiring more attention to managing the risks associated with acquiring and using that content

·Some countries’ introduction of new laws and regulations applicable to copyright

·Information managers also identified one-time and ongoing training and restrictions on use as the most effective ways to manage copyright risk at their organizations.

The Phase 2 response group of content end users reported similar levels of concern regarding copyright, with 36% deeming copyright more important than a year ago, 63% as important as a year ago and less than 1% less important than a year ago. Reasons for the shift included:

·Library team in charge of copyright compliance has less time and resource to ensure staff awareness of copyright obligations

·More interest by senior management

·More actions to create awareness about copyright as well as measures to proactively mitigate copyright risks at the time of information usage or ordering

·More education of new hires well as existing staff

·Following training courses, staff are more aware of copyright issues

More than half of content end users noted that they share information from paid databases on a daily basis and approximately 71% reported sharing web content daily.

“With copyright issues making front page news, information professionals and end users are becoming increasingly concerned about using information in a copyright compliant manner,” said Robin Neidorf, General Manager, FreePint. “To this end, information managers are working hard to help their organizations and colleagues develop better practices that reflect today’s environment and business needs.”

Phase 1 of the Copyright Policies and Practices project featured 196 completed survey responses from information managers at corporate libraries, law firms, government agencies and other corporate institutions in the U.S., U.K., Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa. These managers report that they are being proactive about identifying and managing copyright risks by relying on a range of resources that help reduce the risks of misuse; the managers also admit to uncertainty and a desire for more predictable industry standards, improved training, and technology to support their efforts.

Phase 2of the project had 392 completed survey responses from content end users. Their input provides valuable insight into how knowledge workers are interacting with content, what questions they are asking themselves about appropriate use of materials, and where their attitudes and needs may diverge from those of information managers and policies overall.

The urgent business need underlying this project is for organizations to manage more effectively the risks of copyright as well as the costs of information. Through a comparison of Phase 1 and Phase 2 responses, the study identifies a number of critical gaps between the policies that organizations have set and the actions on the desktop that may not be aligned with those policies. Every gap is increased risk or potentially increased cost. These gaps include: {bolding added}

·End users who are more confident that they understand their role than information managers give them credit for.

·Increased use of free resources from the Web, without clear understanding of the underlying copyright restrictions of that content.

·Lack of clarity among end users around the scope of use of premium resources their organizations subscribe to.

·Confusion about where to turn for clarification on copyright policy and/or additional training or resources.

Companies can use the report to benchmark their own policies and tools against those survey respondents who describe and begin to identify where their own gaps may exist so that they can better manage those risks and costs.

About Copyright Clearance Center

Representing copyright holders from nearly every country in the world, Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) is a global rights broker for millions of the world’s most sought after materials, including in- and out-of-print books, journals, newspapers, magazines, images, blogs and ebooks. Founded in 1978 as a not-for-profit organization, today CCC promotes the seamless sharing of knowledge by creating innovative licensing solutions that let academic institutions, businesses, and individuals quickly get permission to use copyright-protected materials while compensating authors, publishers, and other content creators for the use of their works. For more information, visit www.copyright.com.

About FreePint®

FreePint (www.freepint.com) conducts research on global issues in information practice. Projects are developed in conjunction with buyers and users of information products and services as well as vendors of information products and services. These projects tap FreePint’s global network of over 100,000 information practitioners to learn about and report on the changing face of the industry.

Information from the JISC/CNI 2010 Meeting, Managing Data in Difficult Times: policies, strategies, technologies and infrastructure to manage research and teaching data in a fast changing technological and economic environment, is available in the meeting's blog. Included are session summaries and video interviews. The site also contains links to other CNI and JISC content.

The range of topics covered at the conference was quite broad, so there is something here for everybody.

Special collections staff are duty-bound to promote their collections and ensure continued access. The challenge of the digital age is that many would-be patrons now assume that “everything is on the Internet,” and they do not pursue non-digital resources. Special collections staff can meet this challenge through the use of social media tools. This paper examines what tasks these tools can accomplish, and how they are used successfully by two specific collections. These collections’ usage of social media was evaluated through semi-structured interviews with staff, informed by analysis of their websites and use of commercial social media sites. This research finds that each collection used tools differently, and was most successful in promoting and providing access to their collections when they kept their audience's needs in mind. From this study, other special collections staff will learn how to successfully approach the use of these tools for their own collections.

For her paper, Repp interviewed staff involved in the Hugh Morton Collection at the University of North Carolina's Photographic Archive and the Duke Digital Collections at the Duke University Libraries, studied their websites in light of their usability, and examined how they are using social media tools. These collections are reaching out to potential users with blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter and more. For example, in talking about Duke, she wrote:

The pre-populated “Share-This” bar includes the option to share individual items in the collections with others on the Connotea, Delicious, and Digg social bookmarking sites, as well as on Facebook. One can additionally save the item directly to one’s own Google Bookmarks account. Further options are available on the homepages of individual collections. (p. 16-17)

After exploring what these collections are doing, and the benefits of their efforts, Repp states:

...the primary lesson for other digital collections is no matter what they begin with, they must begin to experiment with social media. (p. 42)

With over 100 endnotes, resources for further study, and an annotated list of other collections using social media tools, Katie-Rose Repp has written a paper to be proud of!

Repp's paper is not available on the Internet. She reports that UNC will be making all of the Master's Papers available, but she is not sure when. For now, if you are interested in reading it, please contact Katie-Rose Repp at katie {dot} rose {dot} repp {at} gmail.com

Addendum 11:30 a.m.: Katie-Rose Repp reports that she has already heard from a number of people who are interested in her paper. (She's thrilled!) BTW I'm hoping she'll get a version of this paper published.

Continuous capacity development and awareness programmes are necessary to achieve the objective of transforming the novice into digital librarians of future. The success of ICDL 2004, ICDL 2006 and 2010 has encouraged and motivated TERI, New Delhi and Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation, Kolkata in partnership with Ministry of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi to conduct of the ICDLM 2011 which will provide yet another stimulating forum for DL professionals to share their knowledge, experience and wisdom.

The theme of the proposed conference is ?Extending Benefits of Modern Technology to Public, Academic and Special Libraries?. The conference will focus on creation, adoption, implementation and utilization of digital libraries, e-learning and a knowledge society. We invite you all to submit your research paper.

Objectives

Provide a platform and enable interaction among DL experts and researchers

Facilitate creation adoption, implementation and utilization of DL?s, and their future implications

Friday, July 02, 2010

I wondered in 2007 if anyone had built a digitization lab that was mobile. I have someone who is interested in learning what others have done in terms of building a mobile lab. If you've built one, please leave a comment on this blog post. Thanks!

What is a mobile lab? One that can be moved from location to location in order to digitize material. It might be housed in a van and then driven to specific locations where items are brought out and digitized. Or it might be a van-full of equipment that is driven to a location and then setup temporarily. The idea is that this lab would move from place to place, across a state or across the country. Likely a lab would contain equipment to digitize the most prevalent type of material (i.e., flat).

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Received this via email.
The DPC, with help from the National Library of Wales, Portico and ULCC, and with funding from JISC, is pleased to announce the launch of the The DPC, with help from the National Library of Wales, Portico and ULCC, and with funding from JISC, is pleased to announce the launch of the third in a series of Digital Preservation Case Notes.

The Case Notes offer straightforward examples of organisations and individuals tackling the digital preservation challenges that come from mass digitization. The latest describes the Welsh Journals Online project from the National Library of Wales. It makes the point that long-term access often requires co-operation from many staff. There is a risk that responsibilities are unclear. Consequently it is important that a senior member of staff is charged with delivering an organization's digital preservation strategy.

The Austrian National Library, the Vienna University of Technology and Austrian Computer Society are pleased to invite you to the International Conference on Preservation of Digital Objects (iPRES2010) in Vienna in September 2010. iPRES2010 will be the seventh in the series of annual international conferences that bring together researchers and practitioners from around the world to explore the latest trends, innovations, and practices in preserving our digital heritage.

Digital Preservation and Curation is evolving from a niche activity to an established practice and research field that involves various disciplines and communities. iPRES2010 will re-emphasise that preserving our scientific and cultural digital heritage requires integration of activities and research across institutional and disciplinary boundaries to adequately address the challenges in digital preservation. iPRES2010 will further strengthen the link between digital preservation research and practitioners in memory institutions and scientific data centres.

PROGRAMME:

iPRES2010 will feature an intensive 1-week program, starting with a set of tutorials on Sunday. This will be followed by 3 days of the main conference Monday - Wednesday including panel sessions, poster sessions and spotlight talks. Between Wednesday and Friday a number of focussed workshops will take place. All this will be accompanied by a social programme offering ample room for discussion and deliberation.

The detailed session schedule will be announced in the next few days on the iPRES2010 website. However, for a first overview of the topics covered and the programme offered, a rough outline of the programme as well as the list of papers accepted is provided below at the end of this email.

REGISTRATION:
Registration services are provided via our partner Nethotels Vienna. We have also arranged accomodation at a number of hotels in the vicinity of the conference venue, which can be booked directly. Further information is provided at the iPRES2010 website in the accomodation section. Please make sure to register as early as possible to make sure you benefit from the reduced early registration rates. Also, please note that some workshops are co-sponsored by institutions, offering reduced rates for a limited number of participants on a first-com first-serve basis.

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Vienna in September. If you have any questions concerning iPRES2010, do not hesitate to contact us at ipres2010@ifs.tuwien.ac.at.

About Me

Jill Hurst-Wahl is an associate professor of practice in the Syracuse University School of Information Studies and the director of both its library and information science & LIS with school media specialization programs. She is a member of the USNY Technology Policy and Practices Council. A former corporate librarian, Jill has always been an advocate for expanding the career opportunities for LIS graduates. Her interests include digitization, digital libraries, copyright, web x.0 and social media.